We did some research and could not find an easy answer. So we set off on a task of building a word-counting machine. Well, two months later and working through a few weekends, we have come up with our word-counting machine.

So far, we have counted 12.17 million words in over 10,300 books, articles and news stories – all written in English. We have mainly used the British English spellings, but it should be similar for US or American English.

So here is the list of positive words sorted by frequency.

Rank

Positive Word

Frequency
(per Million Words)

1

all

3887

2

one

3290

3

will

3209

4

would

2857

5

more

2495

6

could

1882

7

now

1852

8

very

1640

9

like

1589

10

can

1507

11

first

1348

12

see

1248

13

made

1184

14

know

1177

15

well

1175

16

just

1129

17

much

1064

18

most

1045

19

must

1035

20

new

1030

21

go

997

22

good

984

23

make

925

24

still

890

25

life

884

26

great

875

27

many

860

28

here

802

29

young

702

30

going

653

31

always

586

32

right

575

33

let

573

34

give

556

35

love

548

36

yes

547

37

better

466

38

really

452

39

best

422

40

heart

422

41

family

415

42

enough

397

43

whole

394

44

help

389

45

need

372

46

together

363

47

show

350

48

full

347

49

friend

344

50

believe

333

51

open

333

52

light

317

53

sure

313

54

power

311

55

change

302

56

indeed

298

57

large

296

58

party

292

59

kind

290

60

care

289

61

able

282

62

understand

273

63

idea

266

64

matter

263

65

hope

261

66

possible

254

67

rest

251

68

big

251

69

group

247

70

service

239

71

certain

234

72

soul

228

73

clear

228

74

top

228

75

reason

226

76

nature

224

77

support

223

78

real

220

79

free

218

80

happy

215

81

strong

211

82

answer

202

83

manner

198

84

social

195

85

ready

194

86

hold

190

87

sense

188

88

forward

183

89

pleasure

181

90

team

177

91

truth

175

92

interest

174

93

try

171

94

sound

167

95

sun

166

96

action

166

97

beautiful

163

98

master

160

99

fine

157

100

simply

155

The word-counting engine is very powerful and we are analysing over 1 million words per week. We hope to be able to use it to generate more articles over the coming months.